Enjoyable and educational remix!

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Thank you to Macmillan Audio for my ALC on NetGalley!

Pub date: Sept 7th

In one sentence: A YA remix of Little Women that takes place in the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island - the March sisters rely on each other as they work to make their dreams come true.

Do I need to read Little Women first? Will I like this book if I did/didn't like Little Women? This is a remix inspired by Little Women, but I think it's distinct enough that 1. you don't need to read the original and 2. your enjoyment of the book doesn't depend on you enjoying the original.

If you did read Little Women, the sisters' roles will seem familiar - Meg is the oldest, Jo is the writer, Beth struggles with illness, and Amy is the baby. But setting the story in the free colony and making the March sisters Black lets this story to stand apart from the original. You can see how the sisters' racial identity makes their struggles against a male-dominated world much more difficult than in the original book, as they also have deep-seated prejudice to overcome. Jo's story is particularly striking - she is asked to rewrite her book in dialect to make it seem "more authentic". Meg also deals with being seen as property - despite not being a slave, her white employer doesn't understand that she has her own agency, opinions, and desires.

Readers interested in intersectional feminism should pick this one up - it definitely opened my eyes and made me think. I'm excited at the prospect of the younger generation reading this book - even though it is a "remix", it felt different than anything I'd read before. Adenrele Ojo did a great job with the narration - she brought these girls to life for me! One tip: I don't recommend multitasking while listening if you pick the audiobook - I had to focus in order to keep track of which sister was talking.